The present invention relates to the field of parallel computation in general and more specifically to a method and apparatus for processing three dimensional volume element (voxel) data for image processing applications.
Internal integrity verification of industrial products is currently achieved by processing two-dimensional images, whereby only two-dimensional connectivity is taken into consideration. However, 2D image analysis can produce ambiguity in decision making and provide inaccurate measurements fore complex structured parts. For instance, when the X-ray projection plane cuts through the cracking direction of an elongated flaw, low detectability results due to the low signal-to-noise ratio of the data. Further, in some systems, wall thickness measurements are done on a slice-by-slice basis. In this case, accurate measurement can only be achieved when the normal of the projection plane is perpendicular to the surface normal of the inspected wall. In practice, this requirement is not met due to the curved nature of parts. In both cases, true 3D analysis is required.
Challenges of 3D voxel processing and analysis include developing robust algorithms which exploit the true 3D nature of large data sets, providing the demanded processing speed and throughput, and handling the computation complexity. For instance, size may range from 0.5 Gbytes for a single blade to more than 200 Gbytes for a large casting. Computation complexity also increases dramatically for 3D connectivity-conserved processing. Based on the existing technology, it will take from 8 hrs. to more than 5000 hrs. processing time to inspect a part. In order to achieve practical 3D voxel processing and analysis for inspecting large industrial parts, massively parallel processors are required.